Layers
by MissFuneralSong
Summary: His little sister, his genius, and he found her broken. He holds her together and he tries to fix her but River knows it won't work, and he gave everything to save her. But he can't.


_Layers_

He found her broken. He left his whole life behind to save her and take her home, his little sister, his little genius, River just as she was before. But he found her broken. And sometimes River looks into Simon's eyes and sees something there that scares her so badly and she hopes and hopes that it's just her paranoid schizophrenia acting up again like Simon always says because River can't see that in Simon, she just _can't_, she can't bear it.

Pain. Regret. Anger.

Simon is her brother and Simon loves her and River knows that but still. His whole life. He would have been a brilliant doctor, work in the best Core hospital, best doctor in the best hospital and rich and happy and saving lives and he threw all that away to save River. River would be pained and regretful and angry too, she thinks, but then she stops and wonders why she thinks this because she never would have thought it before. River can't figure out why. Her mind has been so clouded for so long, barely able to stay lucid, barely able to even _become _lucid in the first place or at least by Simon's definition of lucidity, and since the brain scan and the medicine and Simon trying to help her trying to put her back together trying trying trying but it's no good and she can't keep her thoughts, hardly has time to think them before they melt away...or peel away like layers, onion layers, but River's onion has too many layers and something deep and dark right down in the heart of it and she doesn't want it to come out, but the layers just keep peeling...

Sometimes Simon holds the layers together. Like he is now. Here's Simon sitting by her on her bed, watching River who's watching the wall and watching the pictures swirl in it and smiling. Christmas tree's not there, no presents, just coal. Changes. Kids playing Unification War games, dinosaurs dinosaurs -- dinosaurs on a console and an old coffee tin spinning in the black, spinning toward River and swirling and colour and suddenly it's a grenade and then there's a _real _war playing out right before her eyes, explosions and gunfire and running and blood, oh, so much blood and death, the smell and taste and feel of death all around her everywhere and noise, and _noise_, and the noise rises up and takes a hold of River and she _is _the noise, carried by it, her mouth open and her lungs on fire and the _noise_ --

And Simon is there. Holding her, comforting, stroking her hair and telling her everything's all right, just a nightmare, don't be afraid don't be afraid everything's all right now River and she says in a whisper, "No."

Simon doesn't understand because he can't see the things that River can see, no one can see the things that River can see, and there are more things than just those and they're buried under all those layers and it hurts it _hurts _all the time and she's all alone in her pain. Simon doesn't understand. "What?" he asks her.

"No. Not a nightmare. It was real. Everything. All ... real in layers." She looks at her brother and begs him silently, needs him to understand but he can't understand, not ever, not unless she cuts open his head drills into his skull opens up his brain and moves it all around and breaks him...and she won't do that, River won't, because she loves Simon and she wants him safe. He can't be broken because he holds the layers together, only sometimes but enough and she needs that and she needs _him_. River tries again. It won't work, she knows it, but she has to try for Simon. Hand to her head because it's aching, pounding, _hurting_. So much pain. Captain and Zoe. So much pain.

"It wasn't real for me but it was real for _them_," she says, staring at the wall and willing the pictures back so she can explain them but also willing them away because they're terrible, too terrible... "A war. _The _war. Real for them, but I wasn't there so it's not real for me. Not just a nightmare but for them..." River breathes in. River breathes out. Tries to think tries to _think _tries to _elaborate _has to quantify. "Nightmare for them but real too," she tells Simon, and he stares at her and she frowns at him and she can't make him understand because he can't see it, the pictures in the wall that are really in her eyes and in her mind because River is a receptor. They let all her feelings flood her and other feelings come now too, ones that aren't River's and aren't Simon's and sometimes they're not even the crew's and the feelings grow memories and River sees them all and she feels them like they were her own and she can't keep them _out _no matter how many layers because River's thoughts are like layers but not her feelings, River's _feelings _are like a solid wall that inches closer and things get fired over it, grenades just like in the war that River didn't fight but she remembers fighting through someone else's brain, Zoe's brain, the Captain's brain.

"Emotional projectiles," she whispers, matter-of-fact. Simon looks at her pityingly and she wants to strike him right across his face because he thinks like a person so he can't understand. But she doesn't do it, she'd never do it. Never to Simon, never. The only thing River can do is scream and cry and so she does, and Simon pulls her close and rocks her like a baby and River breathes in Simon and remembers things how they used to be, River's memories, but River's memories are never clear because some of it's made up and all the other memories crowd in until they almost drown River out. But Simon pushes it all back. Only sometimes. Only for a little while, but he does.

"You found me broken," breathes River.

"I'll fix you," says Simon.

His little sister, his genius, River just as she was before. He'll never get her back. Too much, everything all there in River's head and nothing gets rid of it and not even Simon keeps it back for long but he doesn't stop trying. He won't ever stop trying. Never stop giving up everything for River to save River and River wouldn't blame him if he was pained or regretful or angry because River would be, too.

But he isn't.


End file.
